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INTERFAITH CHAPELS IN DEMAND

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WHERE shall the wedding be held? When the bride and bridegroom are of differing faiths, that can be a difficult question to answer.

True, there are country clubs, catering halls and even backyards. But none of these can provide the solemnity of a church or synagogue in which an interfaith couple can take their vows.

While the consensus of those professionally involved in the wedding field is that the number of interfaith marriages on the Island is increasing dramatically, only the chapel on the C. W. Post campus of Long Island University in Brookville and the Mariners' Chapel at the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point can provide such an atmosphere. Of those two, only the Post chapel is open to the general public.

''We don't advertise at all, and we have no idea how people hear about us, but we have all the weddings we can handle now,'' said Peg Larson, assistant director for scheduling at the Post chapel.

Mrs. Larson estimates that more than 250 marriages a year take place at Post, with most of them packed into the weekends in April, May and June and again in September and October. The majority of these are interfaith marriages.

Post has had to limit its weddings to three a day and often is host to as many as six ceremonies on a spring weekend.

''It's not unusual for the last bride to be walking out while I'm walking in with the flowers for the next ceremony,'' said Anita Kelleher, owner of Giese Florist in Hicksville, which has done the floral arrangements for a considerable number of weddings at Post. ''They're still taking pictures, and I'm trying to decorate the altar.''

At Kings Point, Capt. John J. Bevins, the senior chaplain, said the chapel has an average of two weddings a weekend the year round, of which perhaps a quarter are interfaith marriages. The Mariners' Chapel, however, is available only for couples with a connection to the academy: an alumnus or faculty member or members of their immediate family.

At Kings Point as at Post, only the backdrop is provided by the school. The couple are responsible for handling all details, including hiring of the officiants.

While Kings Point requests an unspecified donation to the academy's general fund, Post requires a $500 rental fee to be paid in full at the time the reservation is made. The couple have an hour and a half to get in, decorate the hall, get married and get going.

In comparison, it costs $250 to get married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and $45 at A Love Connection, a spur-of-the-moment chapel in Las Vegas.

At the Mariners' Chapel, on a hilltop overlooking Long Island Sound, a couple have the option of selecting any of three altars. The Colonial-style chapel - replete with gold anchors, polished mahogany, majestic white pillars and Wedgwood blue walls -boasts a revolving, three-faced altar. An automatic turntable affords the bride and bridegroom their pick of a Protestant, Catholic or Jewish altar, each with its own appropriate fittings.

''With the press of a button, we can give them whichever they choose,'' Captain Bevins said. The selection occasionally leads to last-minute bickering within the families, however. ''Sometimes the couple decides to set the altar in between with the furnishings of both religions represented,'' the chaplain said.

The chapel at Kings Point is impressive enough that little in the way of flowers need be added. Even Mrs. Kelleher, who decorates the Post chapel for weddings but was married at Kings Point, described the Mariners' Chapel as ''too beautiful to even want flowers.''

At the Post chapel, the setting is different.

''Don't get me wrong - I think Post is great, because there's noplace else to go,'' said Denise West, who was married there last July. The Wests, an interfaith couple, learned of Post only after a long and fruitless search for a place other than a country club in which to exchange their vows.

''Rob and I were a little depressed when we first saw the place,'' she said. ''It's got blank walls that are badly in need of a paint job; it has folding chairs, a pulpit and a table and two steps which you make up into an altar. That's it.

''I was a wreck worrying they would leave the place a shambles from the wedding before ours. But our florist agreed to bring along a few vacuum cleaners just in case. They weren't needed, and everything went well, but you have no assurances things will run smoothly.''

For the West nuptials, the florist lined the bare walls with ficus trees, built a canopy of flowers, trucked in standing floral baskets and wound garlands around the circular bannister in the outer vestibule.

''In the end it was beautiful,'' said the bride's mother, Patricia VeyVoda, who paid the bill.

At Post there are very few fixtures to suggest any particular religion, and that's a blessing, according to Mrs. Larson.

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''I feel badly for the kids, because even with the little we have, sometimes his mother will not walk in if there's a cross on the door, or her grandfather will not come in if there's a Star of David displayed,'' Mrs. Larson said.

Mrs. Larson recalled one young man who had to put tape over religious symbols before his family would attend.

Both chapels advise making reservations at least a year in advance. Some couples book the Post chapel as much as three years before they take their vows.

The couple must also find members of the clergy who will marry them in a chapel setting. At an interfaith ceremony there are usually two officiants - and they are not easy to come by.

While Post provides the names of several members of the clergy, Kings Point does not. If the couple do not elect to use the names provided, the selection can be difficult.

At both chapels the overwhelming majority of interfaith marriages are Catholic-Jewish. Msgr. Francis J. Maniscalco, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre and editor of the Long Island Catholic newspaper, said the diocese counted a total of 9,000 weddings in 1986 involving Catholics, 2,000 of which were between a Catholic and a non-Catholic.

Sixty-five couples were granted dispensations specifically to hold their ceremonies at the Post chapel, and 61 of those 65 were Catholic-Jewish weddings.

As Monsignor Maniscalco described it, the Catholic Church today follows a rather liberal policy in its granting of dispensations for interfaith marriages.

''Such weddings are discouraged by the very fact that people have to get a dispensation, and there usually has to be a serious reason,'' he said. ''But if the couple intends to go ahead, it's probably better not to force the issue but rather to allow the marriage to go forward.''

The dispensation in hand, most parish priests will participate in an interfaith ceremony, whether it be in a chapel, a country club, a private home or a catering hall, although the latter setting ''is not encouraged,'' according to Monsignor Maniscalco.

Obtaining a rabbi is another matter. Indeed, even finding a rabbi who will openly discuss participating at an interfaith ceremony can be difficult.

Rabbi Anchelle Perl, head of the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education of Nassau County, is an Orthodox rabbi who neither condones nor participates in such weddings. He said there can be no such thing as interfaith marriage in the eyes of Jewish law.

''The sanctity of a Jewish marriage exists only when it is between two Jewish people,'' Rabbi Perl said. ''A Jewish marriage goes beyond signing a piece of paper.''

He described those who perform interfaith weddings as ''Long Island Rail Road rabbis - they zip in, they do a job and they zip out.''

Rabbi Nathaniel Schwartz, who officiates at many of the weddings at Post, said that a large number of rabbis perform such ceremonies. He could not, however, provide the name of more than one, and that rabbi refused to speak with a reporter. A second rabbi whose name appears on the Post list also declined to be interviewed.

Rabbi Schwartz believes it is important for someone to be available to counsel interfaith brides and bridegrooms before the wedding.

''Walking away from the couple does not help them,'' he said.

There is a loosely organized group of clergy of all faiths who perform many of the catering-hall weddings on Long Island. The rabbi who coordinates their scheduling declined to have his name used, but he indicated that his ''clerical stable,'' as he called it, has plenty of work.

A version of this article appears in print on June 14, 1987, on Page LI11 of the National edition with the headline: INTERFAITH CHAPELS IN DEMAND. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe